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Well the CEO of Samsung has already indicated that he'd rather not have lawsuits. "Apple is Samsung's biggest customer. [...] From our perspective, we are not entirely happy (about the litigations)". Looks like Apple could end this if they wanted to.

Well the CEO of Samsung has already indicated that he'd rather not have lawsuits. "Apple is Samsung's biggest customer. [...] From our perspective, we are not entirely happy (about the litigations)". Looks like Apple could end this if they wanted to.

Okey... First of all the sides are styled after the PSP sides. Sony had the chiclet keyboard earlyer than Apple. The backplate (behind the screen) is tranlucent. The flip meganism is totaly different. The on-off key and it's light is, well Mac doesn't have it. The side/onderside is halfway divided into two colors. The speakers are above the keyboard. The curvature in which the keyboard lies is curved down only one way. It doesn't have a seperate trackpad; the entire underside is translucent and the keys

You know, I remember as a kid learning about the great inventions and inventors and thinking how cool it would be to come up with the next great idea. Now when I think about coming up with the next great idea, all I can picture is how I would even *begin* to deal with all the patent lawsuits that would inevitably follow.

Maybe there is someone out there who has the grain of insight in his mind that could lead to a radical advance in propulsion that could make a manned mission to Mars practical. But if the first thing that some venture capitalist tells him is "We'd love to fund this, but there is no way we can afford to defend you in the onslaught of patent lawsuits" how is it ever going to materialize? Patent trolls and patent collectors make it harder and harder for anything that isn't mainstream and almost immediately marketable from ever making it past the concept phase.

If I only got my news from Slashdot every day, I'd probably have an alarmist worldview too, yet in spite of your dire hypotheticals, the world's technology is totally amazing right now and better than ever.

Slashdot posts so many patent stories because it generates pageviews. Always gotta have something for people to raise their fists over.

yet in spite of your dire hypotheticals, the world's technology is totally amazing right now and better than ever.

Except for periods of technological regression, your statement holds true for any moment in history. We're not concerned about the state of technological progress here, we're concerned about the rate of technological progress. The argument for patent reform is that without these sorts of patent fights draining tech companies of money and stifling innovation, the world's technology would be e

Maybe you missed it, but TFA is about how that totally amazing technology was being banned from sale because two giant companies are going to war over patents. Totally amazing technology that's not available is not much good to anyone.

You know, I remember as a kid learning about the great inventions and inventors and thinking how cool it would be to come up with the next great idea. Now when I think about coming up with the next great idea, all I can picture is how I would even *begin* to deal with all the patent lawsuits that would inevitably follow.

It's even worse. You come to think that the thing you might pour your soul into, will eventually be taken hostage by some sleazy scum bag waiting for "idiots like us" to come up with the next great thing. Most of us would loose the waiting game. In several occasions I for one have refrained from doing exactly what I described in order not to become entangled in some legal loosing game. It would be save to assume that I'm not the only one to have done so. For that reason I think the patent system hinders sof

I wish I could believe you were just trolling. But I think you might actually be serious.

You've got a problem, bud. That laptop looks hardly anything like mac books. The login logo looks nothing like an Apple. Companies have been putting their logo on that part of the frame for ages (such as my 7 year old Dell laptop). Black bezels are nothing new or unique to Apple (for example, see Sony Vaios for years).

And to your sig, Google doesn't claim to be about openness. They make some of those claims about Andro

The implication is when your product and your profit mark up are no longer competitive, companies often seek other legal manipulations, political corruption and, deceitful mass media to keep other products out and of course to continue to artificially inflate their profit margins.

So the big question is who will be the winner in the consumer eyes, who will be seen as the manipulative, conniving, greedy, anti-customer, corporation holding the end user hostage to the greed of corporate executives out of control.

Even if they break even, Apple loses badly, as the fashion conscious technology unconscious product any tarnishing of their marketing image will cost them hugely.

The implication is when your product and your profit mark up are no longer competitive, companies often seek other
legal manipulations, political corruption and, deceitful mass media to keep other products out and of course to
continue to artificially inflate their profit margins.

Were you referring to Apple? This article is about Samsung trying to block the iPhone 5.

Apple sued Samsung because their product looked almost exactly like an iPad. If you were far enough away not to be able to read the logo, or it was covered by a finger, you'd probably think both products were the same. This is not something that can happen 'accidentally' and not something that slows innovation when stopped.

Then, in retaliation, Samsung sues Apple over broad brushed 'technical' patents that are dubious at best (along with I'd estimate 98% of granted technical patents that hardly meet the obv

I'm genuinely confused. The article is about Samsung's alleged decision to attempt to ban sales of a currently unreleased and unannounced model of iPhone. Kurt555gs posts about how brilliant his Samsung phone is and concludes with the statement that he "can see why Apple has gone to the darkside of law suits."
What has that got to do with the article? We've done many articles on Apple's lawsuits. If you want to comment on their relevance to this development - great. But FFS, we can't just go on posting the

Well I'm glad I made your day brighter, but my comment wasn't intended as earnestly as you've taken it. I thought that would be implied by the parts that you edited out - including a (bad) reference to Zoolander. I find the ongoing struggle between Apple and Samsung interesting, but Slashdot has become pretty tedious.

I have a Iphone v. 2 wife has a Samsung galaxy as well. Once you get over the size of the thing it's very nice. The OS eye candy is very cool & the apps as expected. Long term I don't know how stable it is because I'm not a regular user of her phone, but my wife has yet to complain. Personally I'm about sick of all the browser crashes, lockups, Apple glitches & work arounds needed to make my phone "just work".

Oh and ditto for the Ipad. We got ours as a give away, and it useful & has som

No, It won't allow you to make full use of the bluetooth, it won't work as an fm radio and it won't let you use it as removable storage without installing itunes on every pc you want to connect it too.

You do realize this is a story about Samsung planning litigation against Apple, not the other way around?

It is fairly obvious that Samsung is suing Apple in retaliation for Apple suing Samsung, and actually delivering some significant damage to them (blocking sales of their product). SGS2 was one of the phones which Apple claims to be infringing on their iPhone design patents.

It is because Samsung's (no idea why you drag Google into this) products are actually better than Apple's on practically all counts, and claims of their similarity are quite exaggerated - no sane person would confuse one for another.

I don't think my claim an overstatement. My SGS2 has "SAMSUNG" printed in fairly big letters on the front side, right above the screen. If that is not a big enough clue that this is not an iPhone, then I don't know what is.

I don't think my claim an overstatement. My SGS2 has "SAMSUNG" printed in fairly big letters on the front side, right above the screen. If that is not a big enough clue that this is not an iPhone, then I don't know what is.

So a rose by any other name - like, say, Samsung - would not smell the same. Because it would have a big fucking sign on it saying SAMSUNG. Wow, very convincing.

It is because Samsung's (no idea why you drag Google into this) products are actually better than Apple's on practically all counts, and claims of their similarity are quite exaggerated - no sane person would confuse one for another.

(I own SGS2; my previous phone was iPhone 4)

If they were better, why the need to copy them? Will you finally admit it when Samsung won't let you remove your battery from your phones, like they already do with their Pads?

Most of the alleged "copying" is simply straightforward adaptation of form to function, where it's not at all surprising that several people will end up with a similar result. Apple's tablet design patent for rectangle-with-rounded-corners is a prime example of that kind of thing. It's like patenting a moving vehicle with four rounded wheels, and then complaining that others are "copying" because they don't want to bite it and just have five wheels, or square wheels - the suckers!

There are sports like running where the rules are simple and determining the winner is simple, perhaps even automated. Then there are judged sports like gymnastics and ice skating where winning boils down to subjectivity.

The world economy is increasingly based on intellectual property, which is not governed by the physical laws of production capacity and unit cost. Instead intellectual property is government by subjective judgements about who deserves how much of the credit. These judgements are formalized in patent and copyright law, but they still come down to interpretation and value judgement. There is no firm ground to stand on.

You are 100% correct, except that you are describing presisely what capitalism is NOT. The first and foremost prerequisite of capitalism is voluntary association. Capitalism is founded on the lack of coercion (i.e. government interference) in the market, not the presence of it.

Remember that we are talking about the most expensive, most powerful government in world history. Again, capitalism is defined by the lack of government, not the presence of it. Theoretically, the purest form of capitalism is anarchy

You are 100% correct, except that you are describing presisely what capitalism is NOT. The first and foremost prerequisite of capitalism is voluntary association. Capitalism is founded on the lack of coercion (i.e. government interference) in the market, not the presence of it.

Oh, it's so cute you believe that.

But capitalism is the operation of a purely for profit business, not a voluntary association. It is quite fond of coercion when there is profit to be found. Our most successful capitalists are wi

Seriously, people are quick to jump on companies that are doing the suing, but the problem at heart is that there needs to be some serious patent reform. Until then, companies will sue for whatever ridiculous reason there might be if it leads to happier shareholders.

This was my first thought. "I wonder how much longer until we have real corporate wars." We're already close enough with the industrial-military complex and the fact that corporations basically buy their own Congressmen (as they have been since the 1800s).
I think the only thing that really stops them is that governments still have slightly more power than the major corporations.

I'm rather curious as to when sci-fi will become fulfilled prophecy as these companies go to war with real weapons.

Yes, Apple has already designed it's iArmy, they will be dressed in shiny white armour with highly inaccurate weapons that can only fire one shot at a time. I believe they will look something like this [wikia.com].

Hopefully, with the current thermonuclear melt down going on between the "big boys" over all those bogus patents, the people holding those patents will come to realize that bogus patents cause more trouble than they are worth (literally). Maybe then the big boys will get on the bandwagon to eliminate bogus patents from the system.

By "bogus" I mean patents that are trying to claim that "one click checkout" is a novel, cutting edge technology (or using gestures to unlock a smart phone, or the colors used for

Could it be that the patent system is biting the technology companies, that they themselves brought it into existence and nourished it, in the ass? And, if yes, would they ever realize it?

I work for a fairly large chemical company and we stopped filing for patents. Although the purpose of a patent is to protect the inventor, it inevitably makes the idea accessible by the competition. Since all chemical factories are private grounds protected by fences and guards, we cannot check whether our competitors have actually stolen our patented inventions (and, of course, nor can they). Besides, we have better stuff to do than going through all production facilities in China to check every damn apparatus to see whether we should file a lawsuit or not.

So there you have it. No patents, no trouble. Just a big ol' fence and LOTS of security (both physical and IT). We also stopped publishing our research findings to conferences and journals and we demand a confidentiality agreement from every university that sends students to work for us.

Yes, and trade secrets like those your company is holding are certainly one valid way to protect your company's IP.

The downside, however, is that both you and your competitors are wasting thousands of hours inventing the same new compositions. The pace of innovation throughout the industry is slowed, since there is so much duplication of effort. This shows that the existence of the patent system is just as important as ever, but that we need reform on the litigation side.

Interestingly, there are very few if any important discoveries / inventions that are lost to time, or effort wasted due to keeping something a trade secret versus publishing or patenting it. Most patents cover already very established principles with small variations that are generally easily reverse-engineered or are quite intuitive to anyone 'skilled in the art' trying to solve the same problem.

A large amount of duplicated work is inevitable even when the idea is publicly released, because most companies

FTFA: [koreatimes.co.kr]
``For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights.’’

Samsung owns mobile telecommunications? So every cellphone infringes? Wow, how'd they get that patent?

How many who are reading/. now believe that the patent system is actually functioning well and serving the public in the way it was supposed to? Anyone who keeps remotely abreast with tech and science trends knows that the current patent system (and for matter, intellectual property law in general) is massively broken.

Reform will only come when the waves get big enough that the public starts paying attention. That's not going to happen with the equivalent of small scale knife fights that get settled behind closed doors.

To make real reform happen, it needs to get to a point when high profile players with very deep pockets get to a point where neither will back down. Even better is if all parties involved start generating some real fear, uncertainly and doubt. Get the public to pay attention. Really make it seem like the nuclear options are on the table. Aka, "If we lose, we're going to have to disable X features on your device..."

Then we'll see some action. Then we might some serious attempts at reform.

Apple taking the hard line on this on so many fronts seems so nonsensical that I half believe that they're doing this on purpose. If you're Apple, I think you see the writing on the wall. Doing what Apple does best (other than making money) on the production side - putting together other people's ideas into a smart, well-designed, consumer-friendly package - is going to get harder and harder with these shackles and hillbilly armor that everyone's weighing themselves down with. If you think about it, Apple doesn't usually invent most of the tech in their products.

Really, is this absurdity that far-fetched? The level of Apple's aggression on so many fronts is mind-boggling.

I think Google's got a Plan, too. We already know that Google types think of massive patent bidding wars - they were submitting joke bids during the Nortel auctions.

That's my fantasy, anyway. In this fantasy, the world is Good & Just. Apple hasn't taken over the role of Evil Empire from Microsoft and Google's policy of do no evil actually means something.